Re: Next gov’t should complete Site C — but learn from mistakes, Feb. 18

Contrary to what was stated by Marvin Shaffer, B.C. Hydro’s long-term planning process has consistently identified the need for new energy and capacity resources to meet future electricity needs in B.C.

While the demand for electricity fluctuates year-to-year, we are forecasting demand to increase by almost 40 per cent over the next 20 years, as our population grows by over a million people and the economy expands.

Without Site C, B.C. is forecast to have an eight per cent capacity deficit and a two per cent energy deficit within 10 years — equivalent to the power needs of 100,000 homes.

Furthermore, the project is being financed at historically low interest rates; low commodity prices are helping to keep the costs of materials down; and the slowdown in the natural resource sector means skilled workers are available.

Not only is Site C the most cost-effective option to meet B.C.’s future power needs, once in service, Site C will generate clean and reliable electricity for more than 100 years. While it’s impossible to plan to the head of a pin, we will need the power from Site C and, like our existing hydro facilities, it will benefit generations of British Columbians.

Finance Minister de Jong’s budget illustrates a dismaying tactic in electioneering. Cut social services and public education to limit spending; raise rates for MSP, Hydro and ICBC to increase revenues; ignore the housing crisis to maximize income from property transfer taxes; and then, just months before an election, promise to solve the problems they’ve created by spending some of the surpluses they’ve amassed.

There could be no better example of this than in public education. The very government that closed hundreds of schools, cut thousands of teaching positions, drastically reduced services for students with special needs and eliminated spending on school supplies and busing, has now, as ordered by the courts, committed to reinstate conditions that existed years ago.

Let’s hope the public won’t be misled by this “two steps backwards, one step forward” approach to governing.

Richard Hoover, Delta

B.C. climate action plan in full swing

Re: The rise and fall of climate change in B.C., Opinion, Feb. 14

Marc Lee’s recollection of climate action in British Columbia is devoid of fact. I would like to correct some of his more egregious statements.

Mr. Lee suggests the 2008 Climate Action Plan report “gathers dust on the shelf”. In fact, by the end of 2012 all 71 of the actions in that Plan were either completed or underway, supported by over $1 billion in investments. This led to the release of our follow up Climate Leadership Plan (CLP) last August. The CLP contains 21 new actions which will lead to an eight per cent GHG reduction by 2030.

Our 2012 interim GHG reduction target was indeed met and, in fact, the six per cent reduction we achieved by 2012 complied with international standards endorsed by the United Nations.

The revenue neutrality aspect of B.C’s carbon tax continues to be held up as the global standard. In fact, at last fall’s climate conference in Morocco, B.C.’s revenue neutral carbon tax was hailed by the United Nation as “an example worldwide for innovative carbon pricing.”

B.C. has been repeatedly lauded for our climate action by reputable publications including The Economist and New York Times, and reputable institutions including the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, along with the UN.

With air guns becoming much more popular these days, and being brought more often to public schools, we need to start looking at the consequences that these instruments may pose. It is important to ensure our high school students feel safe. The article states that air guns are becoming more realistic and if the public is unable to tell the difference between air guns and real guns this can cause a lot of anxiety and fear. Perhaps one day posing a mandatory colour scheme on these guns would be valuable, so this way they are easily discernible from a real weapon.

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